Medical delivery catheters are well known in the art of minimally invasive surgery for introduction of fluids and devices to sites inside a patient's body. For example, balloon dilation of luminal stenoses (e.g., in procedures such as angioplasty or balloon dilation of a bile duct), stent placement, and introduction of radio-opaque contrast fluids are common uses of catheters.
The most widely used form of angioplasty makes use of a dilation catheter having an inflatable balloon at its distal end. In coronary procedures, a hollow guide catheter or wire guide typically is used for guiding the dilation catheter through the vascular system to a position near the stenosis (e.g., to a coronary arterial lumen occluded by plaque). Using fluoroscopy, the physician guides the dilation catheter the remaining distance through the vascular system until a balloon is positioned to cross the stenosis. The balloon is then inflated by supplying pressurized fluid, through an inflation lumen in the catheter, to the balloon. Inflation of the balloon causes a widening of the lumen of the artery to reestablish acceptable blood flow through the artery. In some cases, a stent may be deployed with or instead of the balloon to widen and hold open the occluded arterial lumen.
Preferably a catheter used in endovascular lumens will have several physical characteristics. The profile and shaft size of the dilation catheter should be such that the catheter can reach and cross a very tight stenosis. Portions of the dilation catheter must also be sufficiently flexible to pass through a tight curvature or tortuous passageway, especially in a catheter adapted for use in the coronary arteries. The ability of a catheter to bend and advance effectively through the endovascular or other lumens is commonly referred to as the “trackability of the catheter.” Another important feature of a dilation catheter is its “pushability.” Pushability involves the transmission of longitudinal forces along the catheter from its proximal end to its distal end so that a physician can push the catheter through the vascular or other lumenal system and the stenoses. Effective catheters should be both trackable and pushable.
Two commonly used types of dilation catheters are referred to as “long-wire” catheters and “short-wire” catheters. A long-wire catheter is one in which a wire guide lumen is provided through the length of the catheter that is adapted for use with a wire guide that can first be used to establish the path to and through a stenosis to be dilated. The dilation catheter can then be advanced over the wire guide until the balloon on the catheter is positioned within the stenosis.
In short-wire catheters, the wire guide lumen may not extend the entire length of the catheter. In this type of catheter, the wire guide lumen may extend only from the distal end of the balloon to a point intermediate the distal and proximal ends of the catheter. This shorter lumen is the only portion of the catheter contacting the wire guide. It is sometimes desirable to exchange this first catheter and/or balloon for a second catheter (e.g., to “exchange out” a balloon catheter, and then “exchange in” a stent-deployment catheter). The exchange is preferably executed by leaving the wire guide in place during removal of the first catheter and using it as a guide for the second catheter. The first catheter is withdrawn or otherwise removed over the wire guide, and then a second catheter is introduced over the wire guide.
Short-wire catheters are often easier to exchange than catheters having the wire guide lumen extending the entire length of the catheter. This is because the wire guide need not be as long as a “long wire” configuration, which requires that a length of the wire guide extending outside the patient's body be longer than the portion of the catheter extending over the long wire guide in order for a doctor or assistant to maintain a grasp on the wire guide (to avoid undesired movement or displacement thereof). The short wire guide configuration catheters also create less friction during mounting and exchange operations due to the shorter wire guide lumen, leading to a reduced likelihood of displacing the wire guide.
Catheters for use in endovascular lumens typically require a variation in physical properties along different portions thereof. For example, a certain degree of stiffness is required for pushability and trackability near the proximal end while distal end requires a great deal of flexibility. A catheter having uniform properties throughout its length poses disadvantages in that it is likely to be too proximally flexible or too distally stiff. As a result, most catheter shafts (especially endovascular catheters) are made from multiple materials along the shaft length. For example, a catheter shaft may have a stiff proximal portion made of metal hypotube, a middle portion made of a stiff plastic, and a distal portion made of a more flexible plastic. This combination of materials poses problems of cost and efficiency in construction, and the junctions provide problematic possibilities for structural failure (such as binding, kinking, or even separation) as well as requiring specialized connection means. In another example, a catheter shaft may be made of plastic for a major part of its length, but have a stiffening wire disposed through a significant portion of that length to enhance stiffness. Some long wire catheters rely almost wholly on placement of a wire guide therethrough to retain the needed stiffness, which presents the problems of length and unwieldiness discussed above. In contrast, the proximal sections of short wire catheters must have adequate stiffness independent of the wire guide.
Several different structures for shortened guide wire lumen dilation catheters have been proposed and used to obtain the desired physical properties described above, but each of these structures tends to suffer from several disadvantages. For example, in a short wire catheter having a relatively flexible one-piece plastic design, because only a small portion of the wire guide extends through the catheter body near the distal end of the catheter shaft, the wire guide portion does not contribute to the pushability of the rest of the catheter shaft. As a result, the proximal shaft portion of such a catheter has low column strength. With such a configuration, the shafts and guide wire may tend to develop undesirable flexure (e.g., scissoring, bowing, buckling, kinking) when the balloon is being manipulated in a lumen. This undesired flexure may cause an irregular exterior surface such as a sharp edge which can in turn cause injurious abrasions to the inner lining of the artery or other lumen (e.g. other body lumen or a working lumen of an endoscope). This undesired flexure also leads to poor pushability and trackability of the catheter. To counteract this deficiency, some known designs have extended the length of the wire guide lumen and/or provided additional stiffener elements in the shaft.
In one design, a significant proximal portion of the catheter shaft is made of a metallic tubing (commonly referred to as a hypotube), which provides the desired pushability while maintaining a relatively small outer diameter. The distal portion of the catheter shaft is a second, more flexible (commonly plastic) tubing. In short-wire catheters using the hypotube design, a first aperture for introduction of a wire guide to the wire guide lumen is usually placed in the hypotube near to the distal end thereof. Alternatively, this first aperture is placed in the second tubing, or near the juncture between the hypotube and second tubing. These types of catheters, however, present certain disadvantages. Having the first aperture in the hypotube mitigates the advantages of a short-wire catheter: the wire guide must be longer, and advantages conferred by reduced friction are lessened. Having the first aperture at the aforementioned junction or in the second tubing creates a likelihood of undesired flexure (e.g., kinking or bunching) as there will be at least some portion of the more flexible second tubing unsupported by a wire guide, and therefore lacking column strength. Not only may such undesired flexure injure an endovascular or other lumen housing the catheter, but it may close off an inflation lumen or other lumen of the catheter, which is undesirable. The problems of increased cost of assembly and various mechanical problems presented by constructing and using a catheter having both semi-flexible hypotube and more flexible second tubing portions of the same catheter are addressed in the present invention.